About the position
We are looking for a motivated and curious Junior SAP Payroll Consultant to join our clients growing SAP Practice in Johannesburg.
This is an early-career opportunity designed for someone who has completed at least one end-to-end SAP Payroll implementation and is now ready to grow their skills inside one of the world's leading SAP delivery practices.
In this role, you will work alongside experienced payroll consultants and project leads on live client engagements — supporting the configuration, testing, and documentation of SAP Payroll and SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll (ECP) solutions. You will gain hands-on exposure to South African payroll legislation, client-facing delivery, and the full SAP Activate project lifecycle. You will be supported, mentored, and given structured development opportunities, including access to SAP certification programmes.
Client Engagement & Requirements Support
- Requirements documentation: support senior consultants in client-facing workshops and process walkthroughs by taking detailed notes, capturing decisions, and producing accurate meeting documentation and action logs.
- Business process analysis: assist in gathering and documenting client payroll and HR business requirements; learn to translate business needs into structured functional design inputs under the guidance of a lead consultant.
- Stakeholder interaction: participate in client meetings and workshops in a supporting capacity; develop your communication skills and build confidence in a professional client-facing environment.
- Design documentation: contribute to the preparation of functional design documents, configuration workbooks, and process design documents under supervision, ensuring accuracy and consistency.
Payroll Configuration & Technical Support
- System configuration: assist with the hands-on configuration of SAP Payroll and/or SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll (ECP) — including wage types, infotypes, payroll schemas, and personnel calculation rules — under the direction of a senior consultant.
- SA payroll legislation: develop and apply working knowledge of South African statutory payroll requirements — PAYE, UIF, SDL, ETI, IRP5/IT3(a) submissions, SARS eFiling, and leave legislation (BCEA) — ensuring these are correctly reflected in system configuration.
- Payroll Control Centre (PCC): support the setup and monitoring of the Payroll Control Centre (PCC), assisting with payroll run management, error identification, and resolution under guidance.
- Integration support: assist with configuration activities related to the integration between SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central and ECP, including employee master data mapping and time data flows.
- Issue resolution: identify, log, and investigate payroll configuration defects and data anomalies; escalate to senior consultants with well-documented root cause analysis and proposed solutions.
Testing & Quality Assurance
- Unit testing: execute unit testing scripts against configured payroll scenarios; document and communicate results clearly, and assist in defect resolution.
- Parallel run support: support payroll parallel run activities, including data preparation, running parallel payroll calculations, and reconciling outputs against legacy payroll results.
- UAT support: assist client super-users during User Acceptance Testing (UAT); capture issues raised, track resolution progress, and support re-testing activities.
- Data migration support: assist in the preparation and validation of payroll data migration files — including employee master data, historical payroll balances, and opening balances — ensuring accuracy and completeness.
Documentation & Learning
- Configuration documentation: produce and maintain up-to-date configuration documentation, test scripts, and process notes to audit-ready standards.
- Continuous learning: proactively develop your SAP Payroll knowledge through structured project exposure, learning platforms, and preparation for SAP certification. Stay current with South African payroll legislative changes and SAP SuccessFactors product updates.
- Knowledge sharing: share learnings, defect patterns, and process insights with the broader team to contribute to the organisations growing payroll knowledge base.
Required Skills & Experience
Non-Negotiable Requirements
- SAP Payroll implementation experience: a minimum of 1 completed, end-to-end SAP Payroll implementation with demonstrable hands-on involvement — at any stage of the project lifecycle. Candidates with no SAP project experience will not be considered.
- SAP Payroll configuration basics: working, hands-on knowledge of SAP Payroll fundamentals — wage types, infotypes, payroll schemas and rules, and basic Payroll Control Centre (PCC) navigation. Candidates should be able to describe what they personally configured on their project.
- South African payroll legislation: foundational knowledge of South African statutory payroll requirements, including PAYE, UIF, SDL, and IRP5 processing. You do not need to be an expert, but you must understand the basics and be committed to deepening this knowledge.
- Attention to detail: strong analytical and numerical accuracy; payroll errors have direct consequences for employees — precision and thoroughness are non-negotiable at every level.
- Communication skills: clear, professional verbal and written communication; able to produce accurate documentation and interact respectfully and confidently with colleagues and client teams.
- Willingness to learn: genuine enthusiasm for growing in the SAP payroll space; receptive to mentoring, feedback, and guidance; self-motivated to study and develop outside of project hours.
- Location & availability: must be based in Johannesburg (Gauteng) and available to work physically on client sites as required by project scheduling. A valid driver's licence and own reliable transport are advantageous.
Advantageous
- ECP exposure: any exposure to SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll (ECP), even in a supporting or testing role, is a strong differentiator and will be given preference.
- SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central: basic familiarity with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central (EC) — particularly employee master data structures and time management — to support integration activities.
- SAP certification: any SAP Payroll or SuccessFactors associate-level certification, even if recently completed through an academy or training programme, will be viewed very favourably.
- Payroll administration background: prior experience as a payroll administrator or payroll clerk using any SA payroll system (e.g., Sage, PaySpace, VIP) provides valuable business context and will be considered an asset.
- ETI & SARS eFiling knowledge: experience with or exposure to SARS eFiling submissions is advantageous.
- Testing methodology: some exposure to structured software testing — test scripts, defect logging, UAT facilitation — from any prior project or system implementation context.
Qualifications
- Degree (preferred): a recognised university degree or national diploma in Information Technology, Human Resources, Accounting, Business Administration, or a related field is preferred. Candidates without a formal degree but with demonstrable SAP Payroll project experience will be considered.
- SAP certification: an SAP associate-level payroll certification or a SuccessFactors module certification is highly advantageous and will accelerate your application. Certification support will be provided for successful candidates.
You must be based in Johannesburg and willing to work physically on client sites as project schedules require.
Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
Desired Skills:
- SAP Payroll Configuration
- SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll (ECP)
- Payroll Control Centre (PCC)
- Business Process Analysis
- User Acceptance Testing (UAT) & Payroll Testing
- Client & Stakeholder Engagement
